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on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Joshua S. Gans; Avi Goldfarb |
| Abstract: | We study automation when tasks are quality complements rather than separable. Production requires numerous tasks whose qualities multiply as in an O-ring technology. A worker allocates a fixed endowment of time across the tasks performed; machines can replace tasks with given quality, and time is allocated across the remaining manual tasks. This “focus” mechanism generates three results. First, task-by-task substitution logic is incomplete because automating one task changes the return to automating others. Second, automation decisions are discrete and can require bundled adoption even when automation quality improves smoothly. Third, labour income can rise under partial automation because automation scales the value of remaining bottleneck tasks. These results imply that widely-used exposure indices, which aggregate task-level automation risk using linear formulas, will overstate displacement when tasks are complements. The relevant object is not average task exposure but the structure of bottlenecks and how automation reshapes worker time around them. |
| JEL: | J23 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34639 |
| By: | Minwoo Hyun |
| Abstract: | Using matched employer-employee data covering 1.35 million US workers separated from the fossil fuel extraction industry between 1999 and 2019, I estimate how local fossil fuel labor demand shocks affect employment and earnings. Employment probabilities fall markedly after exposure, and earnings decline gradually over the first seven years with only partial recovery by ten years since exposure to the shocks. Workers who remain in the fossil fuel sector, disproportionately men in sector-specific roles, experience nearly twice the earnings losses of those who switch sectors, possibly due to limited occupational mobility. Among non-switchers, losses are larger in labor markets with high employer concentration, indicating that scarce outside options translate into lower reemployment wages and weaker bargaining positions. Geographic movers fare worse than stayers, reflecting negative selection (younger, lower-earning) and relocation to metropolitan areas where fossil fuel or low-skilled service sectors remain highly concentrated, leaving monopsony power intact. |
| JEL: | Q32 R11 J31 J60 J42 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:25-76 |
| By: | Victor Hernandez Martinez; Nicholas Kozeniauskas; Roman Merga |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of trade liberalization on the full wage distribution, exploiting Spain's 1993 entry into the European Single Market. Using employer-employee data, we identify the causal effects of trade across the entire wage distribution, using a novel shift-share instrument embedded in an unconditional quantile regression. We find that the liberalization reduced wage inequality, leading to wage compression through earnings gains at the bottom of the distribution and wage losses at the top. We trace this compression to two asymmetric channels: import competition disproportionately harmed high earners, while export opportunities benefited low earners. The key mechanism is an import-driven “skill-downgrading.” A multi-region multi-sector model shows that the key insight for understanding these empirical results is that trade's distributional effects depend on the skill intensity of a country's tradable sector, and Spain's was relatively low-skill intensive back then. |
| Keywords: | trade liberalization; inequality; ESM |
| JEL: | F15 F16 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2026–01–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwq:102314 |
| By: | Laura Chioda; Paul Gertler; David Contreras-Loya; Dana R. Carney |
| Abstract: | We study the medium and long term impacts of Skills for Effective Entrepreneurship Development (SEED), a 3-week entrepreneurship training program for secondary school students in Uganda. The mini-MBA, modeled after business school curricula, was implemented as a randomized field experiment with a nationally representative sample of 4, 402 youth. After four years, the training improved both hard and soft skills. SEED graduates became more effective negotiators and communicators and exhibited improved self-efficacy, stability, plasticity, and stress management. In the medium run, treated youth were more likely to start enterprises and more successful in ensuring their survival, thereby gaining greater entrepreneurial experience. Their ventures were also of higher quality: more likely to be formal, have employees, be in collaboration with other entrepreneurs, and use effective business management practices. With 52% of the sample still enrolled in post-secondary education, we find suggestive evidence that businesses led by the treatment groups performed better. After nine years, business ownership converged between treatment and control groups as control ownership rates doubled. However, SEED graduates maintained their edge in terms of business quality and operated firms with 20% higher revenues and 16% higher profits, without corresponding increases in capital or labor inputs, consistent with higher total factor productivity. Entrepreneurial success was achieved through the adoption of better business practices and experimentation, with soft skills related to entrepreneurial mindset playing a complementary role. SEED generated high returns on investment: the present discounted values of SEED-induced business and total earnings equal 20 and 27 times program costs, respectively. |
| JEL: | C93 I20 J23 J24 M13 M53 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34637 |
| By: | UCHIKOSHI, Fumiya; GAGNON, Etienne; YAMAGISHI, Atsushi |
| Abstract: | We analyze how test-optional admissions affect students’ job market outcomes. To this end, we conduct an experiment that corrects employers’misperceptions about the prevalence of test-optional admissions in Japan, where both test-optional and test-based admissions coexist within the same schools and programs. We find that test-optional admissions function as a signal of students’ ability and induce statistical discrimination against test-optional applicants during resume screening. This discount applied to test-optional applicants is particularly pronounced at lower-ranked institutions, which tend to enroll students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Consequently, the adoption of test-optional admissions may disproportionately harm these students in the labor market. |
| Keywords: | Test-optional admissions, Survey experiment, Job market, Statistical discrimination, Inequality |
| JEL: | C91 J22 J24 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hituec:775 |
| By: | Subhrasil Chingri (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi); Debasis Mondal (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi); Klaus Prettner (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | Can human capital accumulation mitigate the adverse effects of automation on the global labor share? To answer this question, we build two theoretical models-first an automation augmented growth model with exogenous human capital to illustrate the general effects of education in the context of automation; and then an automation augmented endogenous human capital accumulation framework in which individuals decide how much of their time they devote to education. We show that while automation puts downward pressure on the labor share, this downward pressure is reduced by human capital investment. Quantitatively, however, the effect of human capital accumulation in limiting the decrease in the labor share is rather small given actual data on the change in the use of industrial robots and in the years of schooling between 1990 and 2024. Achieving a full stabilization of the labor share requires unrealistically high and sustained investments in education. Our findings underscore the importance of education as a policy lever in the age of automation but they also clarify that education policies alone are insufficient given the challenges ahead. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital, Automation, Labor Share, Economic Growth, Neoclassical Growth Model |
| JEL: | J24 O33 O41 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp392 |
| By: | Alexia Delfino; Andrea Garnero; Sergio Inferrera; Marco Leonardi; Raffaella Sadun |
| Abstract: | We study barriers preventing jobseekers from pursuing reskilling in high-demand occupations. Using a discrete choice experiment, we quantify the demand for reskilling among Italian jobseekers in two white-collar high-demand occupations—information technology assistant and construction technician—and identify its main determinants. Willingness to pay estimates show that participants are willing to pay to reskill into IT, but would require compensation to reskill into construction. Beliefs about monetary returns and social status help explain differences in reskilling demand, but perceived identity fit in the target occupation emerges as the most important individual-level factor shaping reskilling decisions. A light-touch randomized information intervention providing data on occupational returns significantly increases both stated interest in reskilling and actual engagement in real-world training. |
| JEL: | D83 I20 J24 J32 J60 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34633 |
| By: | Tho Pham; Daniel Schaefer; Carl Singleton |
| Abstract: | National payroll data reveal that men are paid more than women when they enter firms in Great Britain. Although this hiring wage gap has narrowed over the past two decades, it still accounts for over two-thirds of the steady-state gender pay gap – the wage gap that would eventually prevail under constant employment levels. We find that a significant amount of this hiring wage gap is not explained by men and women working in different firms and occupations. Even when a firm hires men and women into the same specific occupation at roughly the same time, and accounting for previous work experience, there remains an unexplained hiring wage gap within jobs that favours men by 2.4 log points. These findings suggest that gender pay gap reporting laws that focus exclusively on the overall gaps within employers miss an important margin. |
| Keywords: | Gender segregation, Occupation-specific wages, Employer-employee data |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J70 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2026-01 |
| By: | Yanne Gabriella Velomasy (China Academy of Digital Trade, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, CHINA); Hongsheng Zhang (China Academy of Digital Trade, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, CHINA); Laixun Zhao (Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration, Kobe University, JAPAN) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the impacts of importing intermediate digital inputs (IDIs) on income inequality between high-skilled and low-skilled workers, using a novel dataset that merges recent EU KLEMS and OECD data for 29 countries and 15 industries for 2008-2020. We find that IDI imports significantly widen income inequality, because such imports are associated with higher technology and capital intensities, which directly increase income inequality by complementing high-skilled labor while substituting for low-skilled labor, and indirectly exacerbate inequality through workforce skill upgrading. Heterogeneity analysis shows that these occur primarily in highly digitalized countries and industries, as well as technology-intensive sectors. We also construct two shift-share instrumental variables, namely the global imported IDI shocks and the global digital export shocks, to address endogeneity. |
| Keywords: | Imported intermediate digital input; Income inequality; Workforce skill upgrading |
| JEL: | F16 J31 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2026-01 |
| By: | Lindsey Uniat |
| Abstract: | What is the contribution of changes in female labor supply to the decline of employment in routine jobs observed in the U.S. between 1970 and 2000? While typically attributed to changes in labor demand, the decline of routine employment has been larger for women than for men, as women moved out of routine clerical roles and into high-skill professions. This paper assesses the contribution of the Quiet Revolution—a concurrent shift in women’s life-cycle labor supply from intermittent to continuous—to the reallocation of aggregate employment from routine to abstract jobs over this period. The Quiet Revolution plausibly contributed to women’s movement out of routine and into abstract occupations because the latter feature stronger human capital dynamics, offering returns to continuous work. I develop and calibrate an equilibrium model of the labor market that incorporates both the Quiet Revolution and changes in production technology. Counterfactual analyses reveal that while the Quiet Revolution accounts for 12% to 22% of the drop in the aggregate routine employment share, technology is the dominant force in explaining changes in the overall distribution of employment. Nonetheless, the Quiet Revolution is essential for gender-specific trends: without it, women would neither have entered the labor force nor transitioned into abstract occupations to the extent observed. |
| JEL: | E24 J16 J21 J22 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–01–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:102313 |
| By: | Markevich, Andrej M.; Santavirta, Torsten |
| Abstract: | During the Soviet Union's First Five-Year Plan, Western know-how and technology were extensively infused into industry through technical assistance agreements and work contracts with specialists and foreign companies. We study the causal effects of this purposeful state-led policy on labor productivity using the largest single recruitment effort of Western expertise, namely Karelian Technical Aid. This allows us to exploit exogenous variation in transfer of technology within one sector: the wood processing industry. Combining detailed individual-level data on over 5, 000 North American specialists with a novel panel of accounting data on the universe of Soviet enterprises in Karelia and the Northern Region during the interwar period, we document large and persistent causal productivity gains. Important drivers of successful technology absorption were local human capital and the absence of language barriers. |
| Keywords: | Industrial policy, Technology, Technical assistance, Soviet Union |
| JEL: | J24 N64 O14 O3 P2 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bofitp:334521 |
| By: | Boczon, Marta (Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School); Severgnini, Battista (Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how regional economic conditions, birth timing, and institutional rules shape talent allocation into high-risk/high-reward payoff structure occupations. Using rich data on English-born professional footballers and exploiting exogenous variation from European Structural Funds in the United Kingdom (1990–2000), we show that improved local conditions reduced the share of summer-born children, who are disadvantaged by age-based cutoffs in youth academies but exhibit higher underlying talent. Although regional income per capita did not significantly change, fertility timing shifted, shrinking this high-potential group: players born after the intervention exhibit lower peak market values, reflecting how economic and institutional factors can misallocate talent. |
| Keywords: | Talent allocation; Early-life conditions; Birth-timing; Professional sports |
| JEL: | J13 J24 R11 Z22 |
| Date: | 2026–01–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cbsnow:2026_002 |
| By: | Carlsson, Mikael (Uppsala University and Sveriges Riksbank); Häkkinen Skans, Iida (Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of Sweden); Nordström Skans, Oskar (Uppsala University, IZA, and RFBerlin) |
| Abstract: | We document a substantial reduction in the wage responsiveness to regional unemployment (the wage curve) in Sweden during the past 25 years. The period is characterized by large changes in the composition of the labor force arising from refugee migration and active labor supply policies targeting marginal workers. During the period, the relationship between regional unemployment and industry demand shocks weakened as the share of immigrants among the unemployed increased from 25 to 60 percent. Simultaneously, a previously stable wage curve disappeared, even though regional wages continued to respond to regional industry demand shocks. The results suggest that wages respond more strongly to unemployment fluctuations that arise from the demand side than the supply side, and that the unemployment rate has become a less informative indicator of resource utilization and inflationary pressure. |
| Keywords: | Wages; Unemployment; Composition |
| JEL: | E24 J11 J21 J31 R23 |
| Date: | 2026–01–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0459 |
| By: | Erik Sarrazin (Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Creativity and teamwork are essential in today’s rapidly evolving labor market, yet little is known about how incentives shape creative group processes across multiple creativity dimensions, specifically quantity, quality, and originality. I introduce a novel verbal creative coordination task to incentivize and objectively measure these dimensions of creativity and to generate insights into the full creative group process. Thereby, this paper investigates how idea generation, evaluation, and selection can be effectively incentivized in Groups and which incentive scheme maximizes innovation—ideas that are both high in Quality and originality. In a laboratory experiment with 640 participants, groups are randomly assigned to a control or one of three group-level relative performance pay treatments targeting either quantity, quality, or originality. Results show that quantity incentives lead to broader exploration, increasing both the number and average originality of ideas, and outperform all other treatments on the combined indicator of innovative ideas. Quality incentives improve idea quality, while originality incentives fail to boost originality. Incentives mainly operate through higher individual effort rather than group dynamics. Across all conditions, the evaluation and selection phases act as a bottleneck, with highly original ideas systematically discarded. These findings highlight that maximizing creative Output requires incentives that promote exploration and structures that preserve original ideas. |
| Keywords: | creativity, innovation, incentives, teamwork, laboratory experiment |
| JEL: | O31 M52 C92 D02 |
| Date: | 2026–01–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jgu:wpaper:2601 |
| By: | Kory Kroft; Isaac Norwich; Matthew J. Notowidigdo; Stephen Tino |
| Abstract: | Many temporary foreign worker programs issue “closed” visas that effectively tie workers to a single employer, restricting worker mobility and weakening bargaining power. We study the labor market return to temporary foreign workers (TFWs) gaining permanent residency (PR), which loosens this mobility restriction. Using administrative data linking matched employer-employee data in Canada to temporary and permanent visa records from 2004–2014 along with an event-study design, we find that gaining PR leads to a sharp, immediate, and persistent increase in the job switching rate of 21.7 percentage points and an increase in earnings of 5.7 percent three years after PR. Workers also sort into high-wage firms after gaining PR, and the increase in the firm pay premium is roughly 56 percent of the total earnings gain. We find larger earnings gains for job switchers across industries, low-skilled workers, and workers from low-income countries. To guide and interpret our reduced-form results, we develop a search-and-matching model featuring heterogeneous workers and firms. Permanent residents and native-born workers search for jobs in the same labor market and engage in on-the-job search, while TFWs search separately within a segmented labor market and do not receive outside wage offers. We calibrate the model to match our reduced-form results, and we use it to simulate the long-run effects of PR and consider two counterfactual policies: (1) increasing the cost to firms of posting a TFW vacancy and (2) allowing TFWs to switch employers freely under “open” visas. We evaluate how these policies affect output, wages, profits, and overall social welfare. |
| JEL: | F22 J42 J61 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34630 |
| By: | Egshiglen Batbayar; Christoph Breunig; Peter Haan; Boryana Ilieva |
| Abstract: | We propose a new approach to estimate selection-corrected quantiles of the gender wage gap. Our method employs instrumental variables that explain variation in the latent variable but, conditional on the latent process, do not directly affect selection. We provide semiparametric identification of the quantile parameters without imposing parametric restrictions on the selection probability, derive the asymptotic distribution of the proposed estimator based on constrained selection probability weighting, and demonstrate how the approach applies to the Roy model of labor supply. Using German administrative data, we analyze the distribution of the gender gap in full-time earnings. We find pronounced positive selection among women at the lower end, especially those with less education, which widens the gender gap in this segment, and strong positive selection among highly educated men at the top, which narrows the gender wage gap at upper quantiles. |
| Keywords: | Quantile regression, sample selection, Roy model, rank invariance, semiparametric inference, gender wage gap, wage inequality |
| JEL: | C14 C31 C36 J16 J21 J31 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2151 |
| By: | Beuermann, Diether; Pariguana, Marco |
| Abstract: | Choosing a school is one of the most important decisions parents make with regards to their children's human capital, yet they often face restricted choice sets. We study parental preferences over peer quality and school effectiveness in the centralized education market of Barbados, where admissions are based on a one-shot exam and parents face a binding cap on the number of schools to which they can apply. Exploiting a policy reform that further tightened this cap, we show that parents responded by omitting the most selective schools from their applications, underscoring how market design shapes application behavior. We then estimate parental preferences for school effectiveness measured by impacts on test scores and adult wages as well as peer quality. Preference estimates under the assumption of truth-telling indicate that parents do not value effectiveness after controlling for peer quality. In contrast, preference estimates under the assumption of market stability, which allows for strategic behavior, show that parents place substantial weight on both effectiveness and peer quality. This divergence arises because the most selective schools are also the most effective, forcing parents to trade off effectiveness against admission probabilities. |
| JEL: | I21 I24 I28 J24 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14455 |
| By: | Chingri, Subhrasil; Mondal, Debasis; Prettner, Klaus |
| Abstract: | Can human capital accumulation mitigate the adverse effects of automation on the global labor share? To answer this question, we build two theoretical models-first an automation augmented growth model with exogenous human capital to illustrate the general effects of education in the context of automation; and then an automation augmented endogenous human capital accumulation framework in which individuals decide how much of their time they devote to education. We show that while automation puts downward pressure on the labor share, this downward pressure is reduced by human capital investment. Quantitatively, however, the effect of human capital accumulation in limiting the decrease in the labor share is rather small given actual data on the change in the use of industrial robots and in the years of schooling between 1990 and 2024. Achieving a full stabilization of the labor share requires unrealistically high and sustained investments in education. Our findings underscore the importance of education as a policy lever in the age of automation but they also clarify that education policies alone are insufficient given the challenges ahead. |
| Keywords: | Human capital; Automation; Labor Share; Economic Growth; Neoclassical Growth Model |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wus005:80178895 |
| By: | Sho HANEDA; Hyeog Ug KWON |
| Abstract: | Since China's accession to the WTO, the impact of increased competition from Chinese imports (the "China shock") on employment and productivity in many developed countries has become a major concern for policy makers. The share of manufacturing workers in the total number of employees has been declining, and Japan is no exception. The paper empirically examines the impact of the increase in imports from China on employment using questionnaire information of the Census of Manufactures and the Economic Census for Business Activity as well as the Trade Statistics of Japan and the National Freight Flows Survey (Logistics Census) . The main results are twofold. First, imports of intermediate products from China have a positive impact on employment at Japanese firms. Second, imports of capital products from China might have a negative effect on employment growth. Thus, reducing trade barriers in intermediate products, participating in global value chains, and supporting inter- and intra-industry labor mobility for specific workers, regions, and industries that are negatively affected by capital goods are key to employment growth in Japan. |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:25123 |
| By: | Khorunzhina, Natalia (Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School); Wedewer, Jesse (Duke University); Wu, Runling (Duke University) |
| Abstract: | Measures of intergenerational mobility primarily focus on earnings and often overlook substantial heterogeneity in job amenities. We propose a novel measure of intergenera-tional welfare mobility, “value-value” slope, including both pecuniary and non-pecuniary value of a job. We apply a revealed preference approach to construct common rankings of jobs based on worker flows. Using Danish administrative data, we document that there is 31% more intergenerational mobility than earnings-based mobility measures alone would suggest: the value-value slope is 0.105 and the wage-premia slope is 0.151. Importantly, this aggregate pattern masks striking gender differences: comparing within each gender, daughters exhibit 38% greater mobility in total welfare than in wages; for sons, the two measures nearly align. Gender differences trace to how family background shapes educa-tional and occupational paths. Daughters pursue academic tracks and enter white-collar jobs with similar amenities at high rates regardless of background. Sons’ paths are more stratified: those from disadvantaged families disproportionately follow vocational routes into blue-collar work, where both wages and amenities differ sharply from the professional jobs that advantaged sons obtain. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility; earnings inequality; amenities |
| JEL: | D31 J30 J62 |
| Date: | 2025–12–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cbsnow:2026_001 |
| By: | Hübner, Niklas; Stahl, Nuan Susanne; Süß, Karolin |
| Abstract: | We examine the long-term health effects of peacetime conscription in the German Democratic Republic using a regression-discontinuity design that exploits the introduction of conscription in 1962 and resulting variation in conscription between birth cohorts. Conscription eligibility increases musculoskeletal hospitalizations later in life, consistent with descriptive evidence on overuse injuries during service, and raises sick leave during draft-eligible ages and after the German reunification. These effects are not explained by education or wages but partly by occupational sorting into physically demanding jobs. Our findings highlight lasting health burdens of military service and long-term consequences of physical strain and injury. |
| Abstract: | Wir untersuchen die langfristigen gesundheitlichen Folgen der Wehrpflicht in Friedenszeiten in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik mithilfe eines Regression-Diskontinuitäts-Designs, das die Einführung der Wehrpflicht im Jahr 1962 und die daraus resultierende Variation in Einberufungswahrscheinlichkeiten zwischen Geburtskohorten nutzt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Wehrpflicht langfristig zu einer Erhöhung der Krankenhausaufenthalte aufgrund muskuloskelettaler Erkrankungen führt, was sich mit deskriptiven Befunden zu Überlastungsschäden während des Wehrdienstes deckt. Zudem führt die Wehrpflicht zu einer Erhöhung der Krankheitstage während des wehrpflichtigen Alters und nach der deutschen Wiedervereinigung. Diese Effekte lassen sich nicht durch höhere Bildung oder Löhne erklären, sondern teilweise durch eine berufliche Selektion in körperlich belastende Tätigkeiten. Unsere Ergebnisse verdeutlichen die dauerhaften gesundheitlichen Belastungen durch den Militärdienst sowie die langfristigen Folgen von körperlicher Belastung und Verletzungen. |
| Keywords: | Conscription, Health, Authoritarian States |
| JEL: | H56 I18 J24 P36 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:334530 |
| By: | Esther Arenas-Arroyo (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of the home sewing machine on women’s work and intergenerational mobility—an innovation that enabled women to generate income from within the household. Marketed directly to women as a tool for both domestic use and paid work, it provides a unique setting to examine how household technologies reshaped labor markets and intergenerational outcomes. Exploiting the expansion of sewing machine sales agents, which generated geographic and temporal variation in access, I show that access to sewing machines increased demand for dressmakers, raised women’s employment in this occupation, and reduced reliance on child labor. In the long run, children exposed in early life attained higher literacy, formed smaller families, and experienced greater intergenerational mobility. These findings highlight the household as a crucial site of technological change, showing how domestic innovations could expand women’s opportunities and generate lasting gains across generations. |
| Keywords: | women’s work, home production, child labor, children |
| JEL: | J16 N31 J22 J24 J13 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp389 |
| By: | Camarero Garcia, Sebastian; Henao, Leandro |
| Abstract: | This study uses administrative data to evaluate a 2013 Spanish reform that subsidized social security contributions for young self-employed workers. Eligibility was granted to men younger than 30 and women younger than 35 with an active self-employment spell in February 2013. The policy did not extend self-employment duration or increase overall employment probabilities. Male entrepreneurs experienced no significant earnings changes, while women who returned to dependent employment within two years gained about 14% in monthly wages, mainly through transitions into higher-paying service sector jobs. These gains were concentrated among women at higher risk of unemployment, such as mothers and those in rural areas. |
| Abstract: | Diese Studie nutzt administrative Daten zur Evaluation einer spanischen Reform aus dem Jahr 2013, die Sozialversicherungsbeiträge für junge Selbständige subventionierte. Anspruchsberechtigt waren Männer unter 30 Jahren und Frauen unter 35 Jahren mit einer aktiven Phase der Selbständigkeit im Februar 2013. Die Maßnahme verlängerte weder die Dauer der Selbständigkeit noch erhöhte sie die allgemeinen Beschäftigungswahrscheinlichkeiten. Männliche Selbständige verzeichneten keine signifikanten Einkommensänderungen, während Frauen, die innerhalb von zwei Jahren in abhängige Beschäftigung zurückkehrten, einen Zuwachs der monatlichen Löhne von rund 14% erzielten, hauptsächlich durch Übergänge in höher entlohnte Tätigkeiten im Dienstleistungssektor. Diese Einkommensgewinne konzentrierten sich auf Frauen mit einem höheren Arbeitslosigkeitsrisiko, etwa Mütter und Frauen in ländlichen Regionen. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, youth unemployment, regression discontinuity, propensity score matching |
| JEL: | J21 J24 J68 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:334529 |
| By: | Brendan Brundage; Dan J. McGee; Daniele Tavani |
| Abstract: | We review new developments in formal theory as applied to racial stratification. Across this literature, we discuss how discrimination produces benefits for advantaged groups at a cost to marginalized groups, how groups resolve conflicts between individual and collective interests, how direct discrimination is transformed into persistent inequality, and the implications of these forces for racial disparities, efficiency, and social welfare. For researchers active in Stratification Economics, we highlight parallels between intuitions about dimensions of racial discrimination and inequality developed by SE and insights from formal models by theorists outside SE. For formal theorists interested in working on questions of race and inequality, we provide an overview of how SE conceptualizes racial stratification and identify open questions where formal theory can provide more rigorous micro-foundations to these intuitions. |
| JEL: | D74 F54 J15 J71 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34619 |
| By: | Sonia Bhalotra, Sonia (University of Warwick, CAGE, IFS, CEPR, RFBerlin, IZA, CESifo); Clarke, Damian (Universidad de Chile, University of Exeter, and IZA); Venkataramani, Atheendar (University of Pennsylvania and NBER) |
| Abstract: | We leverage the introduction of the first antibiotic therapies in 1937 to examine the long run effects of early childhood pneumonia on adult educational attainment, employment, income, and work-related disability. Using census data, we document large average gains on all outcomes, alongside substantial heterogeneity by race and gender. On average, Black men exhibit smaller schooling gains than white men but larger employment and earnings gains. Among Black men (and women), we identify a pronounced gradient in gains linked to systemic racial discrimination in the pre–Civil Rights era: individuals born in more discriminatory Jim Crow states realized much smaller gains than those born in less discriminatory states. There is no similar gradient among white Americans. Women of both races exhibit smaller education and earnings gains than men on average, consistent with cultural and institutional barriers to women’s work. Our findings highlight the role of opportunities in shaping the extent to which investments in early-life health translate into longer run economic gains. |
| Keywords: | early childhood; medical innovation; race; human capital production; education; income; disability; systemic discrimination; institutions; infectious disease; pneumonia; antibiotics; sulfa drugs JEL Classification: I10, I14, J71, H70 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:785 |
| By: | Ahammer, Alexander (Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz); Halla, Martin (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA); Austrian National Public Health Institute (GOEG); Rockwool Foundation Berlin; and Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO)); Heckl, Pia (ifo Institute. Poschingerstraße 5, Germany; Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and CESifo); Rudolf Winter-Ebmer (Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA); Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS); Rockwool Foundation Berlin, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)) |
| Abstract: | Long-term unemployment among older workers is particularly difficult to overcome. We study the impacts of a large-scale job guarantee program that offered up to two years of fully subsidized employment to long-term unemployed individuals aged 50 and above. Using a sharp age-based discontinuity in eligibility, we find that participation increased regular, unsubsidized employment by 43 percentage points two years after the program ended. The gains are driven by transitions into new firms and industries, rather than continued subsidized employment, and we find no evidence of displacement effects for non-participants or spillovers to family members. The program had no measurable short-run health effects. |
| Keywords: | Long-term unemployment, temporary job guarantee, subsidized employment, health status |
| JEL: | J64 J08 J78 I14 H51 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ihs:ihswps:number63 |
| By: | Monisankar Bishnu (Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi); Subhrasil Chingri (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi); Debasis Mondal (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi); Klaus Prettner (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of automation in shaping gender inequality among high-skilled and low-skilled workers in the United States. We develop an R&D-based growth model of automation in which we endogenize disparities between men and women and between high-skilled and low-skilled labor through education choices. Automation substitutes for routine, brawn-intensive tasks, while it complements high-skilled, brain-intensive ones. Our framework predicts that automation increases demand for high-skilled workers, raising female participation in knowledge production but also widening within-gender and between-skills inequality. Redistributive transfers to low-skilled workers, financed through robot taxation, reduce high-skilled employment, lower innovation, and slow down economic growth despite compressing within-gender and between-skills inequality. Education subsidies expand the share of skilled workers and foster innovation but come at the cost of greater within-gender and between-skills inequality. Subsidies targeted on women reduce between-gender inequality, but they can raise within-gender inequality and slow down economic growth. Finally, in the case of the presence of norms and institutions that are detrimental to gender equality, female empowerment can reduce inequality and raise economic growth at the same time. |
| Keywords: | Automation, Economic Growth, Education, Gender wage gap, Inequality |
| JEL: | E2 H2 J7 O3 O4 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp395 |
| By: | Alba, Salvatierra; Jorge, Velilla; Antonio, Gutiérrez-Lythgoe; Raquel, Ortega-Lapiedra |
| Abstract: | This article examines work from home (WFH) from a household perspective, using the collective framework, which accounts for intrahousehold bargaining, allowing decisions to be understood as interdependent between spouses. The analysis uses representative US data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for the period 2011-2021, which include detailed information on work hours, WFH, wages, and household demographics. The results reveal that WFH is a coordinated household decision, as spouses’ WFH decisions are positively correlated. Second, WFH is persistent for individuals, with those who had WFH in the past having a higher probability of being WFH in the future. Finally, demographic and economic factors matter little in determining spouses WFH decisions, although wages generally reduce the probability of WFH. These findings suggest that policies should treat the household as the unit of decision and focus on removing structural barriers to initial WFH adoption rather than targeting specific individuals. |
| Keywords: | Work from home; collective model; PSID data; gender |
| JEL: | C36 D13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:126983 |